TIM MCKAY, QMI Agency

WATERLOO, ONT. - It's a point of etiquette that one should never ask a lady her age.

But being asked her age is not what irks the current matriarch of Canadian golf, Lorie Kane.

Kane is 47-years-old and hasn't had a whole lot of success recently so, naturally, that dreaded follow-up question came Tuesday in the media centre at the inaugural Manulife Financial LPGA Classic: When was she going to call it a career?

The big smile never faded, but Kane launched into the answer to a question she has heard before and likely will face again.

"If I wasn't the age that it says in the media guide, and I was 10 years younger, would you be asking me when I was leaving the game?" the Charlottetown, P.E.I., native countered. "Because I've only been 16 years on (the LPGA) tour, so to me that's not a full gamut. Inkster's been on tour 30 years and nobody's asking Juli when she's going to retire."

The truth is, Kane looks great -- and says she feels great -- is happy with here game, even though her four LPGA victories came in a burst in 2000 and 2001.

She's a member of the Sean Foley stable and Kane says she's in the best physical shape of her career. And despite not quite getting the results she has wanted thus far this season, Kane feels it's coming,

"Other than a rather scrappy round Friday at the LPGA Championship (where she missed the cut after a 9-over par 81), things are really good," she said.

Kane's top finish of the season came in February, with a tie for 22nd at the Australia Open, and she ranks 191st in the LPGA Rolex Ranking, with $47,066 in earnings.

As for everything coming together on the course, Kane says it's more mental.

"It's more about yourself and how you can play and get ahead of yourself sometimes and be thinking too far forward rather than being very much in the present."

And Foley, as well as long time caddie Danny Sharp, have a lot to do with putting Kane in that position. Even with star client Tiger Woods, Kane says Foley still has the time for her, too.

"I can get any time I want with Sean," she said. "What's great is that I feel that I don't need the time. He's left me quite confident and I have the eyes of Danny Sharp, who has been with me for 16 years. And so the three of us, it's the perfect situation. Sean just makes us comfortable with what we're working on and we just keep progressing."

Kane, who became a member of the Order of Canada in 2006, has earned $6,882,605.00 in her career and has 99 career top-10 finishes to go along with those four wins. An LPGA rookie in 1996, Kane says she had to learn how to win.

"In 1997, I found myself at our tour championship in Vegas in a playoff with Annika Sorenstam and Pat Hurst and Pat lost out after the first hole and I lost the tournament on the third hole, and to be honest with you, it was the best thing that happened to me," she said. "Winning at that time, I don't think I was prepared for what that might mean. And finishing second nine times only made it better for me to be prepared for when I did win."

And Kane still remembers how to win -- "It wasn't that long ago," she said, jokingly, on Tuesday.

But until she gets close, the question will come.

"I guess maybe it's the natural thing to do, because of how old I am," she said of the retirement question. "I don't feel 47, I don't know what 47 is supposed to feel like.